Chapter Thirteen
MACEY
A text exchange between Macey and Amelia, Monday, September 16, 7:42 p.m.
Macey: This could be the very last text I ever send you
Amelia: Haha, very funny
Macey: I have to ride a horse tomorrow
Amelia: You’ll be fine
Macey: I’m leaving you my I’m looking for a Mr. Darcy shirt
Amelia: I’ll wear it with honor
Amelia: Also, stop being a drama queen
Macey: It’s like you don’t know me at all
“ZANE?” I YELL, BUT NOT so loud as to scare my beastly companion.
He doesn’t hear me; he’s too far ahead. This is probably how I die—on the back of a freaking horse. One that won’t move but would rather eat some red berries off a bush. Berries that I really hope aren’t poisonous.
You are strong, you are brave, you can do hard things. You will not die.
At least, if I do end up dying, I’ll look good doing it in this riding habit. Maybe they can bury me in it? Focus, Macey.
“Nice horsey,” I say, nervously reaching up and lightly petting Thunderbolt’s mane. I try again to press my right leg into its muscular side, like the stable master told me to do to get him to move forward, but he doesn’t budge. Instead, possibly sensing my fear, Thunderbolt tosses his large head back, pulling against the reins, and lets out a few grunting sounds.
“Oh gosh,” I say on a shuddering exhale.
“Macey?” I hear Zane call out to me, now probably twenty-five feet away, having finally realized that I’m not next to him like I’m supposed to be. No, my strong and steady horse is really a stubborn and, apparently, hungry one.
I look up to see Zane is now turned toward me on the back of Dandelion, a horse that apparently follows instruction. Why on earth would they give Zane a horse named Dandelion, and me Thunderbolt? How did the stable master take one look at me and think, This petrified woman should get the scariest of our horses ? Strong and steady, my butt.
I know why. It’s because I didn’t say anything. I believe my exact words to the man were, Thunderbolt is perfect, thank you, as I gave him my well-practiced everything is fine smile. It’s very toothy.
Why didn’t I say something? Curse you, stupid people-pleaser gene. But I didn’t want to bother the employee with my anxieties about horses, especially because it would probably sound ridiculous to him. It was seventeen years ago, after all. Besides, it’s not like Lady Catherine would let me out of this. It wouldn’t be canon. Blargh.
Zane could tell, though. He urged me to say something, once again, but I turned that toothy grin on him and told him I’d be fine.
Well, I’m not fine. Not as I sit here with a horse that clearly doesn’t want to listen to me. Or maybe I’m doing something wrong? It’s possible my panic caused me to miss some of the instructions. I push my leg into the horse even harder.
Thunderbolt sidesteps, jostling me, his left ear doing a twitching thing.
Fear courses through me. “Please ... please don’t kill me,” I whisper.
In my peripheral vision, I see Zane heading toward me, his horse taking a leisurely pace. I don’t want to have this conversation right now. The one where he reminds me that if I would have just said something, I could have both feet on the ground and not perched atop Goliath, and I wouldn’t be about to soil myself.
Oh, please, don’t let that happen.
I try once again to press my leg into his side and pray it works this time. I need to get this horse moving so Zane doesn’t have a chance to lecture me again. If I can get the horse to at least walk, it might look like I’ve pulled it together.
“Get,” I say to Thunderbolt, even though I know that’s not the right command.
A loud sort of crack rings out, and I look around frantically to see where it came from, but I don’t have time to see anything before Thunderbolt suddenly jerks to the side, practically unseating me. His ears pin back, and then he tosses his head almost violently, making a snorting noise.
“It’s okay,” I say to the horse, my heart racing.
But my words don’t help to assuage the animal, and I let out a loud scream as he spins on his hooves and launches into a full gallop.
The world becomes a blur as Thunderbolt takes off, and I’m clinging to the reins for dear life. Oh no! Oh no! The pounding of his hooves reverberates through my entire body, each thud sending a jolt up my spine. The wind tears past me, catching my hat and whipping it away, tumbling through the air before vanishing into the field.
“Macey!” I hear Zane shout from somewhere.
It feels like we’re moving at an impossible speed, the ground beneath us flashing by in streaks of green and gold. My heart slams against my ribs, my breaths coming fast and shallow as I try to keep my balance. The saddle feels slippery, my position precarious, and every movement of the horse beneath me is unpredictable and powerful, and I don’t know how to stop it.
I’ve never been so scared in my life.
“I’m coming, Jane!” I hear a woman shout. Monroe? I try to turn my head to look for the voice, but Thunderbolt jerks us to the left as the fence line rushes toward us.
We are going to hit the fence. Or, worse, he’s going to stop at the fence and I’m going to go sailing over it, tumbling to the ground and breaking every bone in my body. This is it. This is how I die.
“Stop! Please!” I plead, but Thunderbolt doesn’t listen.
He barrels toward the fence, and I cling tighter to the reins, praying he doesn’t send me flying over. My knuckles ache, and every muscle screams from the effort of staying on. I’m not even sure how I’m doing it—I’m just holding on for dear life.
“Help!” I shout, my voice cracking as I twist desperately to see anyone who might stop this nightmare.
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot the stable master on a horse of his own, galloping toward us at an angle, his face calm but focused. How is he so calm?
“It’s okay, Miss Bennet, I’ve got him!” he calls, his voice steady in contrast to my panicked breathing.
Thunderbolt jerks to the right again, narrowly missing the fence, and I hold in a scream as the stable master closes the gap between us. With precision, like he’s done this before, he reaches for Thunderbolt’s reins, and I let go and grab on to the edges of the saddle, the stable master’s horse matching stride for stride.
“Easy now, boy,” the stable master says, his voice soothing but somehow loud enough to hear over the pounding of hooves. “Easy, Thunderbolt.”
The shift in Thunderbolt’s behavior is almost immediate. His ears swivel back, and his pace slows, though his strides are still heavy. The stable master pulls gently on the reins, coaxing the horse to settle down even more.
When Thunderbolt finally halts, my whole body sags forward, trembling and drenched in sweat. My hands clutch the saddle, gripping it like a lifeline as I gasp for air, my heart practically beating out of my chest.
“You’re all right now, Miss Bennet,” the stable master says, holding on to both sets of reins firmly.
“Macey!” Zane runs up to us, somehow no longer on his horse. He quickly helps me dismount. The moment my feet are back on solid ground, his arms pull me in, holding me close as though to reassure us both I’m safe.
“Are you okay?” he asks, his hands moving over my back like he’s checking to make sure I’m in one piece.
“I’m fine,” I choke out through tears. Now that the adrenaline is moving out of my body, the weight of everything is hitting me all at once. I was on a runaway horse. I actually feared for my life.
One thing is for sure: That was not the therapy I needed to get over my fear of horses.
“What the hell happened?” Zane asks.
I don’t answer him because I don’t really know, and also because I’ve now started sobbing into his riding jacket, my head pressed against his chest as he holds me. I can feel his quick breathing and hear his heart beating rapidly.
“Spooked by a loud noise, no doubt,” I hear the stable master say. “He’s usually better tempered than that, but it happens.”
“It happens?” Zane yells. “You put someone who’s only ridden once on a horse that’s been known to do this?”
“Well, it only happened the one time,” the man says. “And ... I guess, right now as well.”
“Zane,” I say, trying to get him to stop yelling. It’s not the stable master’s fault that the horse got spooked. It could have happened to anyone.
“And I saw someone else fall off their horse too,” Zane says, his voice full of judgment and disbelief. “Is this how you run things around here?”
“What?” I say, pulling back from his chest. “Who fell off their horse?”
Zane shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “It was someone else coming from a different direction, trying to get to you. I think it might have been Elizabeth.”
“Monroe?” I say, my stomach falling as I pull out of his grasp and start running toward the other side of the field where I see a crowd of people gathered.
“Macey,” I hear Zane call after me, but I won’t stop. Even on legs that still feel wobbly, I run toward the group.
“What happened?” I ask once I reach the group, Zane only seconds behind me.
“Oh, it’s right bleedin’ terrible,” the woman playing Kitty says, her cockney accent thick, Mary and Lydia standing behind her. “Elizabeth’s gone and fallen off ’er ‘orse. She’s knocked out.”
“No,” I say. I can’t believe it—I won’t, until I see her. I push my way toward the center, and there she is. Monroe, lying on the ground, eyes closed, her dark hair spilling from its once-neat coiffure, now fanned out around her like a halo. The duke kneels beside her, looking like a man caught between fury and desperation, his hands hovering uselessly as if he’s unsure of what to do. Lady Catherine and Caroline Bingley stand behind him watching, while Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are holding each other, a tear trailing down Mrs. Bennet’s face.
Zane curses under his breath when he sees Monroe lying there and then pulls me toward him, wrapping his arms around me as I cry once more.
Monroe was coming after me. I heard her. She was trying to help, and then, because of me, she fell off a horse and is now unconscious.
It seems like an eternity, waiting for the paramedics to arrive. When they finally get here and begin their assessment, my tears, which I thought had dried up, start again when I hear phrases like “traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries” being tossed around. Zane pulls me into him once again, his arms holding me close.
“I feel awful,” I say against his chest.
“It’s not your fault,” Zane says.
But it is my fault. I should have listened to Zane. If I hadn’t been so determined to play my role the way it was in the book, if I would have just insisted on walking to Netherfield, then none of this would have happened.
“I hate to disturb you at such a time,” Lady Catherine says to the duke as paramedics continue to assess Monroe. “But I must think about the park and the experience for the rest of our guests. I do hope you will stay on as our Mr. Darcy. Chances are there isn’t much you can do at the hospital. We will find you another Elizabeth.”
Is she for real right now? The man is clearly distraught and hasn’t left Monroe’s side since she fell. Does she honestly think he’d want to dust off and resume his role as Mr. Darcy?
“I would be more than happy to take Monroe’s place.” Winnifred raises her hand.
The duke, whose face is now the shade of a cherry, turns toward the two of them and proceeds to go off, chastising the woman playing Caroline first and then turning his ire onto Lady Catherine. It’s actually very kick-butt, and I hope Monroe gets to hear all about this if and when she wakes up. Oh gosh, please wake up.
And if she does wake up— when she wakes up; I’m going to stay positive here—then I hope she and the duke figure out things between them. I wasn’t so sure last night, when she came back from their little tryst, her eyes red rimmed and tears streaming down her cheeks, that they would get a happy ending. But seeing how he refuses to leave Monroe’s side right now, and how passionately he’s telling off Caroline and Lady Catherine, I can’t help but think they’ll be able to get through the things that are keeping them apart.
They put Monroe on a stretcher, and the paramedics carefully load her into the back of the ambulance. The duke ducks his head as he follows in behind her.
Zane keeps his arms around me as we walk back into the main house, following the rest of the now-somber group. He’s been keeping a hand on me since that joke of a horse ride, either on my lower back, or around my shoulders, or gathering me up, and I can’t say that I mind. I’m sure he’s worked up because of the Thunderbolt incident and later we’ll just go back to our regularly scheduled programing. But for now, I appreciate the comfort. It’s been a long day, and it’s not even noon yet.
Lady Catherine has us gather in the drawing room for a discussion, flustered from the duke’s words, I’m sure. I can only think about Monroe. The image of her lying there, eyes closed and unresponsive, will probably haunt me for the rest of my life. Especially if she doesn’t survive. No. She’s going to be fine. She has to be.
As we all find seats—Zane and I on a settee, his arm around my shoulders—Lady Catherine stands at the front, and I have no idea what she’s planning to say. I can’t imagine how she expects us to continue reenacting Pride and Prejudice after what just happened. Surely we’ll cancel everything and go home early. That’s what I want to do right now. Well, actually, I need to stay at least until I know Monroe is okay.
This trip—the one I won, the one that was supposed to be my saving grace after the worst year of my life—is turning into just another letdown in a long list of disappointments.
And I can’t help but feel like it’s all my fault.